


make boys next door out of scandal

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emprise du Lion, FWB-to-lovers, Footjobs, Kink Exploration, M/M, is it porn or a relationship study? yes, scenes from the middle of that transition anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:13:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: The Inquisition is in the Emprise du Lion; ergo, Dorian is cold, miserable, and in pain. Bull doesn't come visit with lewd intent -- this time -- but, well, sometimes these things happen.





	make boys next door out of scandal

**Author's Note:**

> Here is something I wrote this summer and am posting now because I'm replaying DAII with [mondegreened](archiveofourown.org/users/mondegreened). This is the fandom which cannot ever be truly escaped.
> 
> Very belated note: title is a lyric from [this acoustic version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhC_csJVUGE) of Fall Out Boy's "Young Volcanoes." (The album version is "...out of assholes," but "scandal" seemed more in keeping.)

The Emprise du Leon, Dorian decided, was a nightmare right out of a corner of the Fade where even demons didn’t want to go. It was even more filled with lunatics than the rest of the south, the lyrium hummed at the edge of his mind and he was constantly listening to see if it had begun to sound like a song, and the cold seeped in through his clothes to the roots of his teeth and the marrow of his bones.

The Inquisitor had put in an order for some kind of magically enhanced braziers for the tents, and those would help a bit. Surely. Dorian brushed all the snow off his robes and crawled into the tent, pulling his bedroll as close to the brazier as he dared. He pulled his knees up to his chest and tried to decide if he wanted to burrow under the blankets or not. They might help, but every blanket under him was another layer between himself and the horrible frozen ground.

He used to complain about the cold in Tevinter. He had wandered the streets in the encroaching chill of the rain, in the drizzle that no umbrella protected against; he had come in and sunk into a chair by the fire and sighed in relief, and thought it was good to be warm. He had never flinched into his blankets in the morning; he’d never rushed, getting dressed, just to get another layer of cloth over his skin. He’d never found frost settling on his covers. His didn’t tingle and burn when he stretched them out to the fire. He hadn’t buried his face in the collar of his robes because breathing ached like a knife in the back of his throat. He’d had his own fucking bed in his own fucking house instead of sleeping in a new tent in a new miserable shithole every fucking day.

“Hey, Dorian?” Bull pulled a flap of the tent aside, which was enough to confirm that yes, it actually _was_ warmer in the tent than out.

“What?” Dorian snapped.

“You stopped complaining about your feet a few hours back,” Bull said. “They’re really bothering you, huh?”

“It’s mildly excruciating, yes,” Dorian said. “Why are you letting all my measly heat out of my tent?”

“I brought some stuff.” Bull pushed the flap further aside, holding out a steaming bucket. “I’ve got some cloth here too. Figured I could help.”

“Well.” Dorian eyed the bucket. “Come _in,_ dammit, I had a faint dream it might someday be warm in here.”

Bull shouldered his way into the tent, brandishing the promised cloths, and dropped to a cross-legged seat on the floor of the tent. He settled the bucket in the triangle between his legs and reached out to take hold of Dorian’s ankle. Dorian twitched away from his hand, and he stopped. Bull looked at him, and Dorian looked away.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Dorian was not, frankly, at his best – which, at his worst he was still a few lengths ahead of the pack, thank you very much. But he stank with old sweat; his face was covered in ragged stubble; the kohl around his eyes had gotten smeared into a blotchy mess. _He_ was a mess.

“Nothing,” he said, and stretched his foot out to Bull’s reaching hand. Stiffly, he added, “I appreciate it.”

“Well, I don’t want to have to carry you home if you get frostbite,” Bull said, working at the buckles on Dorian’s boots. “You should take these off when you get to camp, you know. Socks too, if your boots aren’t waterproof. Which they aren’t.”

“What, so my feet can be colder?”

“So they can be warmer. Otherwise all the snow on your boots melts and soaks you. You hadn’t noticed?”

“Obviously I noticed my feet getting soaked,” Dorian snapped. “That hardly made me want to expose them _more_ to the cold.” He levered himself carefully up to help with the buckles.

“Hey, no thrashing around on me,” Bull said, dropping Dorian’s foot into his own lap so he could reach out and push Dorian’s shoulder back. Dorian collapsed back onto his elbows with a huff, though there’d been no strength in the shove. He’d grown used to the easy way Bull moved him around, though when they first started every casual manhandling had made him shiver, half-offended. Bull eased Dorian’s left boot off, his hands gentle, and started peeling Dorian’s sock away from his skin.

“You usually complain more about buckles while you’re undressing me,” Dorian said.

“I can tell what those ones _do,_ ” Bull said, flicking one finger at the boots while he tugged Dorian’s sock free. Dorian’s foot was not a particularly lovely object, even by the standards of feet; he had a ruptured blister on his heel, another one forming on the outer edge of his foot by the toes, and the pattern of the wool pressed into cold and pallid skin. Traces of mud had also made it, somehow, through his boots. Bull didn’t look particularly appalled, just dipped one of the cloths into the bucket and started wiping Dorian’s foot down.

“Where did you get those cloths, anyway?” Dorian asked. “Do you carry them around with you in case you want to give out foot massages?” Bull rubbed the cloth along the underside of his arch, and Dorian twitched. “That _tickles.”_

“The boss picked them up off one of the templars,” Bull said, shrugging. “I checked, though, they’re pretty clean. Must’ve had them in oilcloth or something.” He rubbed against the ruptured blister, and Dorian flinched.

“That _stings!_ ” he protested.

“Sorry, sorry.” Bull’s grip on his ankle tightened, just slightly, holding him in place; Dorian’s eyes slipped closed for a moment. “You’ve got some mud on your heel, though, let me…”

“For Andraste’s sake, I’ve had worse,” Dorian said, well-aware he was contradicting himself and not caring. Bull finished his work and lowered Dorian’s foot into the bucket; Dorian gasped, skin tingling at the sudden warmth.

“Too hot?” Bull asked. “I can add some more ice –”

“No, no, it’s perfect,” Dorian said, flexing his toes. It stung in vicious pinpricks, but anything that lessened the pain would sacrifice some of that delicious heat, and _that_ was a loss not to be borne. It was a calculation that was increasingly familiar to Dorian, lately.

“All right, then,” Bull said, patting Dorian’s knee, and shifted his attention to the buckles of Dorian’s other boot. This time Dorian hissed as Bull eased the boot off.

“What – ah.” Bull shifted his grip away from the swelling around Dorian’s left ankle. “You talk to the boss about this? Quartermaster’s got plenty of potions –”

“Already done,” Dorian said, sighing. “The bruising should ease up overnight, apparently. One of the bloody templars _stepped_ on me.”

“Poor strategy,” Bull said, working Dorian’s sock down his calf. “Getting this over your ankle might hurt a bit, it’s pretty wet.”

“Oh no,” Dorian said, deadpan. “You’re going to hurt me.”

Bull snorted. “Yeah, yeah.” The wet wool did in fact pull tight over the tender swelling, and Dorian flinched, but then it was over. “Damn,” Bull said, glancing down at the purple-and-green mottle that covered Dorian’s foot. “Looks pretty painful.”

“That’s because it _is,_ ” Dorian said. “Be careful, please.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Bull said, already working another wet cloth over the mud dug into Dorian’s toes. It was painful, but far less than it could have been; and Dorian didn’t have any particular sexual interest in having his bruises prodded, but it was strange to have Bull touch him so gently. (Well, it was strange to have Bull touch him gently when they weren’t both sweat-sticky and sated, with an ache lingering in Dorian’s wrists or his thighs or deep within him.)

Bull settled Dorian’s left foot into the bucket, easing the right one back out, and braced it on Bull’s thigh. “This might hurt for a second,” he said, “but it’ll feel better afterwards.” And with that soothing remark, he dug his thumbs into the pad of Dorian’s foot. Dorian bit back a whimper; then, as Bull found a knot in the pad of his foot, he gave up and groaned.

“Those two certainly know how to make a man question his endurance,” he heard Solas say, and heard Lavellan’s low and wicked laughter. Dorian jerked half-upright.

“It’s not like that!” he bellowed, glaring at the canvas in what he hoped was the correct direction. There was the thump of, perhaps, a startled apostate bracing his weapon by reflex, and the sound again of Lavellan laughing.

“Ah, let ‘em flirt,” Bull said, stroking his thumb along the underside of Dorian’s arch. Dorian fought back a twitch; it was half-ticklish and half-pleasant. Dorian glanced again at Bull’s hands, making his own foot look fragile between them, and then blinked. Bull was half-hard, at least, and – bucket in the lap aside – making no particular effort to hide it. A moment later, Bull looked up, and Dorian knew he’d been noticed staring.

“Making a liar out of me, Bull,” Dorian said, wiggling his toes. “So you like my feet, do you?” Dorian was aware, obviously, of people with an interest in feet. He wouldn’t have thought his would be particularly interesting to a connoisseur, in their present state, but perhaps Bull’s tastes were exotic even in exotic interests.

Bull only shrugged. “I like _you_ ,” he said. “And I like hearing you enjoy yourself.” He grinned, running a finger along the delicate bones of Dorian’s ankle. “And, yeah, I like your feet. But I didn’t come in here with an agenda or anything. I just figured… you were in pain, and I could help.”

Dorian closed his eyes. Such a simple thing, to make his eyes sting and his throat burn; such a simple thing, to warm him in a flickering fragile way. “Well,” he said. “Keep going, please.”

“Okay,” Bull said, very low, and rubbed slow circles over the knot in Dorian’s foot that had started the whole discussion, while Dorian breathed into the pain and the relief of his slackening muscles.

“You want me to do the other one?” Bull finally asked, settling Dorian’s foot on his thigh again. “Looked pretty banged-up.”

“I think so,” Dorian said, opening his eyes. “At this point – well, if it were healing naturally, anyway, at this point it would look worse than it feels.”

Bull nodded. “Looked like the worst of the bruising was on top, too,” he said, and eased Dorian’s foot out of the bucket. “You want to soak the right one some more?”

Dorian opened his mouth around _yes, forever, thank you, or at least until the water gets cold,_ and then paused. Bull’s erection was still perfectly evident through his (ridiculous, painful) pants, and an idea was uncurling at the back of Dorian’s head.

“No,” he said. “Move the bucket, would you?”

Bull raised his eyebrow. “Sure,” was all he said, complying, and lifted Dorian’s abandoned foot in his hands. “Let me know if it I hit a bruise.”

“My watchword is _katoh,_ ” Dorian said, and Bull’s fingers went perfectly, entirely still. Dorian smirked.

“Okay,” Bull said, sounding slightly and satisfyingly shaky, and went to work on Dorian’s heel. Dorian’s moan, which he had intended to be sultry and appreciative, turned into more of a yelp.

“Yeah, I thought you’d be tense there,” Bull said, sounding amused. Dorian glared, feeling on firmer ground. “C’mon, you’ll feel better when I’m done.”

“If my foot is still _attached_ by then,” Dorian bitched, and leaned back. Carefully, he shifted his left foot up Bull’s thigh. The next press of Bull’s thumb was gentler, and Dorian hummed, resting his toes on Bull’s cock. Bull’s quiet grunt seemed to fill the tent.

“You look good bruised up,” he said, still working on Dorian’s heel. Dorian only nodded, trying to consider the disparate sensations. He was, by this point, tolerably familiar with Bull’s cock, naked or through trousers, but under his foot? That was new. He was surprised to find he could recognize the shape. He felt, frankly, a little bit silly, but he dragged his heel along the shaft, as he’d often done with his mouth or his hands. Bull liked to be touched roughly, liked to be grabbed with a layer of cloth chafing against him, and apparently he liked this too, because Dorian could – interesting – feel him getting harder.

“Didn’t think this was something you’d be into,” Bull observed, rubbing at the ball of Dorian’s foot. He sounded a little hoarse.

“Well, what’s life without trying new things?” Dorian asked, flattening his foot against Bull’s erection – and then he had to bite down on a laugh. He was in the south of Orlais, hundreds of miles from home, serving an Inquisition in the nominal service of a completely different Chantry, in a tent with his Tal-Vashoth – lover? – who regularly left him bruised and blissful. A year ago he hadn’t even made a distinction between Tal-Vashoth and Qunari. A year and a half ago his personal depravities had leant to anonymity and wine, and had left him slinking home feeling lower than any of Bull’s rough handling and gentle unbinding. Trying new things? He was overstuffed with them. And yet, when he pressed his foot down Bull groaned, and that, there, was familiar. That usually lead to Dorian being bent over the bed and fucked urgently.

Instead, this time, Bull dug his fingers into the bruises striping Dorian’s foot. Dorian barely strangled a shout.

“ _That’s_ not going to get me to keep going,” he panted.

“Oh, you’ll keep going,” Bull said, smiling, and lifted Dorian’s same foot to his mouth, kissing his ankle. His tongue rasped across the swelling, and Dorian whined. His own cock twitched, sudden and sharp.

“I’d have thought,” he said, breathlessly now, “that if either of us was to go around kissing feet, it would be me. Power, you know.”

“I can think of better things to do with your mouth once I’ve got you on your knees,” Bull said. His hand fit around Dorian’s ankle like a manacle. “But it’s like I said, I like you. Feet included.”

“Apparently,” Dorian said, rubbing at Bull’s cock again. “You have remarkably good taste.”

Bull snorted, looking up at him. “Hey. Get your robes open.”

“Oh?” _And what will you do if I don’t?_ But Dorian had a decent sense of what the answer would be, by this point. Bull would surge up the bedroll in a fury of appealing muscle and pin Dorian to the cold ground, and then wait for a pair of heartbeats while Dorian didn’t use his watchword, and then Bull would shove Dorian’s robes up and his trousers down and proceed, one way or another, to make Dorian shout and beg and forget his own name.

Dorian knew what would happen if he stuck out his chin and asked Bull to push him. He was less sure, in this quiet tent, where Bull had come to rub the pain and the cold out of Dorian’s feet and ask for nothing in return, what would happen if he simply yielded under Bull’s gentle hand.

“Very well, then,” he said, and started unsnapping buckles.

“Good,” Bull said, and kissed the top of his foot, just behind the knuckles. “Good.”

Bull kept rubbing at the dissipating knots of muscle as Dorian got his robes open, layer by layer; he made something of a show out of it, brushing his fingers over his own slowly-revealed skin. This was familiar too, this display; a game he’d often played back in Tevinter. Bull watched with unabashed appreciation, although there was something else there too. Evaluative.

“Looks like you’re in pretty good shape, except for the foot,” Bull said. Ah, well then.

“Indeed,” Dorian said. “If you want to see me bruised, you’ll have to do the work yourself.” He started on the laces of his breeches.

“Mmm.” Bull shifted his hips up against Dorian’s foot. “See how it goes. You look pretty good anyway.”

“Of course I do,” Dorian said, wrapping his hand around his cock.

“Half-naked and hard for me? Yeah, I’d say.” Bull ran his hand from Dorian’s ankle to his knee and down again. “I can arrange for a few bruises, though. If you ask nicely.”

“Whatever you like,” Dorian said; it came out breathier than intended, and he could feel Bull’s cock twitch against the side of his foot again. “Whatever… whatever it is you want to do with me.” Fear, cold and ridiculous, fluttered at the back of his throat. It was no different from their usual agreement: Bull would do what he wanted until Dorian stopped wanting him to do it. But it was different to voice that blanket permission; different to offer himself up rather than be taken.

“Okay,” Bull said, kissing his knee. “Good man.” He unsnapped his belt, lifting both Dorian’s feet for a moment so he could shove his own pants down free of his thighs. The tip of his cock shone mouthwateringly wet. He resettled Dorian’s right foot on the crease of his hip and looked to Dorian, waiting.

Dorian took a deep breath, ignored the tiny part of his mind screaming _what! what is your life! how did events reach this point!,_ and set his foot on Bull’s bare cock. The skin was velvet-soft, which made him aware of the callused roughness of his own foot, which – appeal of feet aside – seemed like it ought to hurt. But then, that wasn’t as much an obstacle as he’d thought, was it? And there was no denying the wetness pressing up against the ball of his foot, or the way Bull gasped when Dorian pressed down.

“Good,” he said, catching Dorian’s ankle, holding him in place. “Good.” And now there was pressure in his fingers, pressure and guidance, and Dorian closed his eyes and stroked himself and moved his foot on Bull’s cock as he was bid. Bull let out a choked-off moan and Dorian’s foot was sliding through wetness, sluicing in between his toes.

“Mm,” he said, head tilted back. _So soon?_ echoed at the back of his mind, half-teasing and half in wonder, but he didn’t want to speak, just now. The dimness of the tent made strange shadows behind his eyes.

“Good,” Bull panted again, running clumsy fingers along Dorian’s thigh. “Holy shit.” Fabric rustled, and then Bull’s hands were on Dorian’s thighs, pushing them open before Bull’s mouth closed around Dorian’s cock.

There was some reason Dorian hadn’t wanted to moan, but he couldn’t remember it; he’d wanted to stay still, though, to stay still and let Bull move him, and _that_ made perfect sense. So he stayed still under Bull’s hands and moaned as Bull sucked him off with his thighs pinned to the bedroll. Bull’s horns pressed against his hips, smooth and cool; they pinned him to the ground as much as Bull’s hands, the points digging into the blankets on either side of Dorian. He drifted there, under Bull’s hands and his horns and the urgent wetness of Bull’s mouth, Bull’s tongue. It half surprised him when Bull ran his tongue into the slit of Dorian’s cock and Dorian realized his balls were drawing up, the muscles in his thighs trembling. With a last groan he tilted his head back and came into Bull’s mouth; shuddered and collapsed into a sense of weightless warmth. Faintly he was aware of Bull kissing his thighs.

“Dorian?” Bull asked. “You with me?”

“Mmm. Yes.” Dorian lolled his head sideways. Opening his eyes felt like a great deal of effort. Bull snorted.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna get a cloth, okay? Clean up a bit.” He kept one hand on Dorian’s knee; there was a splash, and the sounds of motion, and Dorian lay still and settled back to earth while Bull wiped off his feet again, and then, slowly and delicately, his cock.

“Those better have been different parts of the cloth,” he said, blinking his eyes open.

Bull laughed. “It was, don’t worry,” he said, and started lacing Dorian’s trousers back up. Dorian blinked. “You okay, there? Seemed like it took you somewhere different, tonight.”

“It did,” Dorian said, gazing up at the canvas above him.

“Okay.” Bull squeezed his knee. “Somewhere good?”

“Mmm.” Dorian considered the liquid feeling in his limbs, the serenity fading but not gone. “Yes.” He propped himself half-up on an elbow, letting his robes fall into further disarray. “You weren’t quite your usual self either, you know.”

“Yeah.” Bull shrugged, reaching up to adjust his eyepatch. He glanced around the tent, then up to Dorian again. “You had fun, though, right?”

“ _Obviously,_ ” Dorian said, with all the hauteur he could manage when it would still take him thought and effort to stand. By the way Bull’s mouth curled, it wasn’t particularly convincing, or rather, it wasn’t a particularly good arrogant show. “I expect a thorough ravishing sometime soon, mind, but there’ll be plenty of time.”

“You gonna set the tent on fire?” Bull asked, shifting up the bed to slot himself in next to Dorian.

“Are you going to spend forty-five minutes teasing me again?” Dorian asked. “Oh, for Andraste’s sake, get under the blankets. I’m not letting you leave this tent, you’re like a furnace.”

“Demanding,” Bull said, tugging the blankets out from under Dorian. “Hey, think we can talk the boss into getting bigger tents?” He tugged Dorian into the curve of his arm, half on top of him. They weren’t quite going to fit, but Dorian knew from experience they would manage well enough. He would wake up stiff regardless; he might as well get some warmth out of it. “Maybe if I time the question right,” Bull continued. “You overhear her and Solas sometimes, don’t you? Let me know if you think we’ve got an opportunity there.”

“Do you not have _privacy_ in –” the Qun – “the Chargers?”                             

“Nope,” Bull said. “C’mon, Dorian. Tents. With _space._ ”

“I’ll be sure to keep you informed,” Dorian said into Bull’s ribs. “Are you going to sleep at any point?”

“Yup,” Bull said, and kissed the top of Dorian’s head. “G’night, Dorian.”

The last thing Dorian heard, before he drifted off to sleep, was Lavellan calling, “Camp is clear!” He muffled a groan; Bull only laughed.

Well, so what? They’d never hear the end of it, of course, but both of them could weather a little teasing. He and Bull weren’t, after all, a secret.


End file.
